Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...

artificial hells
Children outside the Inter-Action Centre, Kentish Town, London, after 1976
today houses several rehearsal rooms, studio production facilities, and an
exhibition space. 72 Participation was key to all aspects of the project, including
infrastructure, although this was not without a degree of realism as to
how far power could actually be devolved and shared equally. 73 Staff and
volunteers were expected to undertake a mix of creative and uncreative
activities; in the early years this led to secretaries resigning, unable to feel
suffi ciently ‘creative’. 74
My second example, Inter- Action, was founded by the US theatre director
Ed Berman in London in 1968, and views itself as a pioneer in the community
arts fi eld. For many years it also occupied the UK’s fi rst dedicated community
arts centre, designed by the experimental architect Cedric Price in 1976
as the small- scale realisation of his unbuilt Fun Palace. 75 (Inter- Action’s
campaign against Camden Council to secure this site is the subject of the fi lm
The Amazing Story of Talacre, 1974.) In the 1970s, Inter- Action served as an
umbrella organisation for a number of experimental theatre companies dedicated
to broadening audiences, under the banner ‘art where it’s least expected’.
These included the Dogg’s Troupe (a children’s street theatre group), the
Ambiance Theatre Club (a free lunchtime theatre in the basement of the Ambiance
restaurant in Queensway), the Fun Art Bus (a converted double- decker
whose passengers were variously entertained with poetry, theatre and song,
and which also included sound and video recording equipment), and the
Almost Free Theatre (in which people could pay what they wanted, in direct
contrast to the high ticket prices of West End theatre). The organisation
180